Hefei hits the high points in boosting tourism

Art, culture, science events generate tourism revenue of more than 100 billion yuan in first nine months

The Hefei culture and tourism sector marked the recent National Day holiday by enriching the market with product offerings and stimulating the vitality of cultural and tourism consumption. Throughout the holiday, highlights of the city's cultural and tourism market received frequent coverage from mainstream media, with elements such as science, culture, performing arts, night tours, and cuisine integrated across multiple formats, igniting the holiday tourism market.

During the National Day period, Hefei and its counties, districts and development zones collaborated to organize hundreds of activities in science popularization, cultural and art exhibitions, artistic performances, themed festivals, intangible cultural heritage displays, and other distinctive cultural and tourism events. The city hosted around 22 events with approximately 1,000 participants, seven events with 1,000 to 3,000 participants, and 23 events with more than 3,000 participants.

Huiyuan Garden in the city's economic and technological development area held a series of events themed "The Big Bang of Future Science Trends", featuring numerous novel experiential projects such as the Anhui flight cinema, scientific equipment experience and music festivals, attracting 148,000 visitors during the holiday.

The 2024 Hefei International New Energy Vehicle Exhibition integrated traditional culture with modern technology. By introducing nearly 20 automotive cultural activities featuring intangible cultural heritage, it presented a feast of automotive culture that attracted 550,000 visitors over six days.

The Hefei City Urban Memory Museum was officially opened during the holiday, attracting fully-booked daily tours to explore the old city and its development, while the Yangtze-crossing Campaign Memorial launched a themed experience to commemorate revolutionary ancestors. Along with a cultural and creative market, it received 64,000 visitors during the holiday.

Xiangyuan Flower World located in Feixi county presented a giant pumpkin art exhibition and showcased gigantic sculptures that attracted a total of 88,000 visitors during the holiday. Key tourist villages such as the Liujiafan Community in Feidong county, Sanhezhen Nanjie Community in Feixi county, and Changchong village in Lujiang county, received 80,000, 210,000 and 45,000 visitors respectively.

Feidong hosted the second Yangtze River Delta Lion Dance Invitational Tournament during the holiday, which attracted 31 teams from the region as well as those from Henan and Jiangxi provinces. A total of 312 athletes came for the competition, drawing a large number of spectators.

Food stalls in leisure streets like Cuojie Street and Gongjie Street were bustling with activity during the holiday period. Visitors tried out food, drinks, games and took strolls while savoring the holiday atmosphere. Huaihe Road Pedestrian Street hosted a bread festival, gathering more than 100 baking and bread stalls. Along with a variety of experiential activities, the street attracted a large number of visitors for tasting and purchasing goods.

The Youth Creative Countryside, a typical project featuring a mixture of tourism and agriculture, provided visitors with a playful and interactive space. The Leijie Street traditional opera-themed parade, traditional Chinese cultural band performance and Chinese-style conjuring performances were a huge hit, attracting 282,000 visitors and generating revenue of 23.72 million yuan ($3.3 million).

Hefei Rongchuang Land, a Huizhou culture-themed park, organized special folk art performances, giant float parades, and fire-themed folk dance performances, welcoming 93,000 visitors during the holiday, while Hefei's seven key night cultural and tourism consumption clusters achieved a combined revenue of 790 million yuan.

Events such as the Bubbling & Boiling Music& Arts Festival, the Zhou Huajian concert tour, and the Zhang Huimei concert provided the audiences with a high-quality cultural feast. The Bubbling & Boiling Music & Arts Festival alone garnered a total online exposure exceeding 116 million and attracted 67,000 on-site spectators, 29,000 of whom were from outside the province. It led to cultural and tourism consumption of approximately 253 million yuan.

The second China (Hefei) International Science and Art Week held in the city launched 30 cutting-edge laboratories and more than 20 art activity areas. Collaborating with eight major Chinese art academies including the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the event has presented a series of scientific and artistic exhibitions.

Additionally, nearly 100 diverse science and art activities, including light shows, Beijing Opera and Anhui folk music performances, music concerts, science film exhibitions, college student micro film exhibitions, and technology poetry workshops were organized, attracting more than 40,000 visitors to experience the mixed beauty of science and art.

The organizers introduced Hefei City's Cultural Concert for the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China, allowing audience to immerse themselves in high-quality cultural and artistic activities.

To promote scientific knowledge and convey the beauty of art, five academicians and three artists presented lectures and art master forums. Through keynote speeches, thematic discussions and other forms of event, the online and offline participation reached 6,000 people.

The activities of the second China (Hefei) International Science and Art Week were covered by more than 10 mainstream media outlets, including People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China National Radio, China Enterprise News, Anhui Daily, AHTV and Hefei Daily.

Since the beginning of this year, the cultural and tourism system has been focusing on the goal of "building Anhui into a cultural and tourism hub" and promoting integrated development of culture and tourism.

The Hefei government recently issued the Implementation Plan for Deepening the Integration of Culture and Tourism and Accelerating the Construction of High-quality Tourism. The city is also making efforts to develop the Hefei urban science and technology cultural leisure tourism circle and Jianghuai Canal-themed cultural tourism.

To improve infrastructure facilities, 26 tourist routes were opened, including high-speed rail tourist special trains, intercity tourism special line and night tour buses. Fifteen new or renovated village visitor centers and 19 tourist parking lots were established throughout the city.

To promote the integration of commerce, culture and tourism, distinctive street blocks were created, with Fashion Street on Mingzhu Square recognized as a national-level night cultural and tourism consumption cluster. The Cultural and Tourism Benefit Consumption Season event launched by the city government introduced 76 measures to benefit the public as it distributed 25 million yuan in cultural and tourism consumption vouchers.

On Friday, at the China Study Tourism Development Report launch ceremony held in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, Hefei was awarded the title of Study Tourism Model City (District) in China for the year 2024.